# Command Reference

## Menu Commands

### File Menu

&Ctrl;O File Open FITS...

- Open a FITS image in the FITS Viewer tool

&Ctrl;I File Save Sky Image...

- Create image on disk from current display

&Ctrl;R File Run Script...

- Run the specified &kstars; script

File Printing Wizard

- Starts a wizard to configure capturing sky objects images using telescope and printing the results as a good looking printout for further use or catalogization.

&Ctrl;P File Print...

- Send the current sky map to the printer (or to a PostScript/PDF file)

&Ctrl;Q File Quit

- Quit &kstars;

### Time Menu

&Ctrl;E Time Set Time to Now

- Sync time to system clock

&Ctrl;S Time Set Time...

- Set time and date

< Time Advance one step backward in time

- Advance one step backward in time in the &kstars; simulation of the sky chart. The duration of the time step can be configured after pressing the little > button on the &kstars; toolbar.

Time Stop Clock

- Toggle whether time passes

> Time Advance one step forward in time

- Advance one step forward in time in the &kstars; simulation of the sky chart. The duration of the time step can be configured after pressing the little > button on the &kstars; toolbar.

### Pointing Menu

Z Pointing Zenith

- Center the display at the Zenith point (straight up)

N Pointing North

- Center the display above the North point on the horizon

E Pointing East

- Center the display above the East point on the horizon

S Pointing South

- Center the display above the South point on the horizon

W Pointing West

- Center the display above the West point on the horizon

&Ctrl;M Pointing Set Coordinates Manually...

- Center the display on specific sky coordinates

&Ctrl;F Pointing Find Object

- Locate an object by name using the Find Object Window

&Ctrl;T Pointing Stop Tracking

- Toggle tracking on/off. While tracking, the display will remain centered on the current position or object.

### View Menu

&Ctrl;+ View Zoom in

- Zooms view in

&Ctrl;- View Zoom out

- Zooms view out

&Ctrl;Z View Default Zoom

- Restore the default Zoom setting

&Ctrl;&Shift;Z View Zoom to Angular Size...

- Zoom to specified field-of-view angle

&Ctrl;&Shift;F View Full Screen Mode

- Toggle full-screen mode

Space View Switch to star globe view / Switch to horizontal view

- Toggle between the Horizontal and Equatorial Coordinate Systems

F5 View Projection Lambert Azimuthal Equal-area

- Switch sky chart view to the Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection.

F6 View Projection Azimuthal Equidistant

- Switch sky chart view to the azimuthal equidistant projection.

F7 View Projection Orthographic

- Switch sky chart view to the orthographic projection.

F8 View Projection Equirectangular

- Switch sky chart view to the equirectangular projection.

F9 View Projection Stereographic

- Switch sky chart view to the stereographic projection.

F10 View Projection Gnomonic

- Switch sky chart view to the gnomonic projection.

### Tools Menu

&Ctrl;C Tools Calculator...

- Opens the AstroCalculator Tool, which provides full access to many of the mathematical functions used by &kstars;.

Tools Devices Telescope Wizard...

- Opens the Telescope Wizard, which provides a step-by-step guide to help you connect to your telescope and control it with &kstars;.

Tools Devices Device Manager...

- Opens up the device manager, which allows you to start/shutdown device drivers and connect to remote INDI servers.

Tools Devices INDI Control Panel...

- Opens up INDI Control Panel, which allows you to control all the features supported by a device.

Tools Sky Calendar

- Opens the Sky Calendar Tool, which allows you to plan observations of Solar System planets by giving graphical data on sets and rises of these objects.

Tools Moon Phase Calendar

- Opens the Moon Phase Calendar Tool with graphical representation of Moon phases with convenient calendar to choose the month and year.

&Ctrl;A Tools Altitude vs. Time...

- Opens the Altitude vs. Time Tool, which can plot curves representing the altitude of any object as a function of time. This is useful for planning observing sessions.

&Ctrl;U Tools What's Up Tonight...

- Opens the What's Up Tonight Tool, which presents a summary of the objects which are observable from your location on a given date.

&Ctrl;W Tools What's Interesting...

- Opens the What's Interesting Tool, which allows you to be informed about the most interesting observations that can be made from your current location using the given equipment.

&Ctrl;B Tools Script Builder...

- Opens the Script Builder Tool, which provides a GUI interface for building &kstars; &DBus; scripts.

&Ctrl;Y Tools Solar System...

- Opens the Solar System Viewer, which displays an overhead view of the solar system on the current simulation date.

Tools Ekos

- Opens the powerful Ekos Tool, which is software guider for your telescope. Alignment capabilities of Ekos are powered by astrometry.net libraries.

&Ctrl;J Tools Jupiter's Moons...

- Opens the Jupiter Moons Tool, which displays the positions of Jupiter's four brightest moons as a function of time.

Tools Flags

- Opens the Flag manager Tool, which can be used to assign color labels and icons to the given positions on the sky chart.

### Data Menu

&Ctrl;D Data Download New Data...

- Open the Get Hot New Stuff dialog to download additional data for &kstars;.

Data Updates

- This submenu can be used to update various object data, namely asteroid and comet orbit elements as well as recent supernovae data from internet. The data will be downloaded for the current user account only. If you use &kstars; from different account you should download them for every account separately.

  &kstars; tries to download recent supernovae list automatically by default. You can switch the download off using Supernovae page of &kstars; Settings window.

### Observation Menu

&Ctrl;L Observation Observation Planner

- Open the Observation Planner tool

&Ctrl;2 Observation Execute the session Plan

- Opens session plan wizard or execute the planned session.

### Settings Menu

Settings Info Boxes Show Info Boxes

- Toggle display of all three Info Boxes

Settings Info Boxes Show Time Box

- Toggle display of the Time Info Box

Settings Info Boxes Show Focus Box

- Toggle display of the Focus Info Box

Settings Info Boxes Show Location Box

- Toggle display of the Location Info Box

Settings Toolbars Shown

- Toggle display of the Main and View Toolbar

Settings Statusbar Show Statusbar

- Toggle display of the Statusbar

Settings Statusbar Show Az/Alt Field

- Toggle display of the mouse cursor's horizontal coordinates in the statusbar

Settings Statusbar Show RA/Dec Field

- Toggle display of the mouse cursor's horizontal coordinates in the statusbar

Settings Color Schemes

- This submenu contains all of the defined color schemes, including your custom schemes. Select any item to set that color scheme.

Settings FOV Symbols

- This submenu lists the available field-of-view (FOV) Symbols. The FOV Symbol is drawn at the center of the display. You may choose from the list of predefined symbols (No symbol, 7x35 Binoculars, One degree, or HST WFPC2), or you may define your own symbols (or modify existing symbols) using the Edit FOV Symbols... item.

Settings Switch to OpenGL/QPainter backend

- &kstars; has an experimental OpenGL support. The corresponding backend works much faster on machines with hardware acceleration. Switch back to QPainter backend (default) if you experience troubles with OpenGL backend.

  In the current version, infoboxes do not work correctly when using OpenGL backend. So they will be disabled.

&Ctrl;0 Settings Define Equipment...

- Allows you to define equipment (telescope, eyepiece, lens and filter) characteristics for observation logs.

&Ctrl;1 Settings Add Observer...

- Can be used to add a new observer item for your observation logs.

&Ctrl;G Settings Geographic...

- Select a new geographic location

Settings Configure &kstars;...

- Modify configuration options

Additionally &kstars; has the common &kde; Settings and Help menu items, for more information read the sections about the Settings Menu and Help Menu of the &kde; Fundamentals.

### Help Menu

&help.menu.documentation;

### Popup Menu

The right click popup menu is context-sensitive, meaning its content varies depending on what kind of object you click on. We list all possible popup menu items here, with the relevant object type [in brackets].

[All]

- Identification and type: The top one to three lines are devoted to the name(s) of the object, and its type. For stars, the Spectral Type is also shown here.

[All]

- Rise, Transit, and Set times for the object on the current simulation date are shown on the next three lines.

[All]

- Center & Track: Center the display on this location, and engage tracking. Equivalent to double-clicking.

[All]

- Angular Distance To...: Enter "angular distance mode". In this mode, a dotted line is drawn from the first target object to the current mouse position. When you click with the &RMB; on a second object, this will display the angular distance between the two objects near the second object. You can press the &Esc; key to exit angular distance mode without measuring an angle.

[All]

- Details: Open the Object Details window for this object.

[All]

- Attach Label: Attach a permanent name label to the object. If the object already has a label attached, this item will read Remove Label.

[All]

- Show ... Image: download an image of the object from the internet, and display it in the Image Viewer tool. The "..." text is replaced by a short description of the image's source. An object may have multiple image links available in its popup menu.

[All]

- ... Page: Display a webpage about the object in your default web browser. The "..." text is replaced by a short description of the page. An object may have multiple web links available in its popup menu.

## Keyboard Commands

### Navigation Keys

Arrow Keys

- Use the arrow keys to pan the display. Holding down the &Shift; key doubles the scrolling speed.

+ / -

- Zoom In/Out

&Ctrl;Z

- Restore the default Zoom setting

&Ctrl;&Shift;Z

- Zoom to specified field-of-view angle

0–9

- Center Display on a major Solar System body:

  - 0: Sun

  - 1: Mercury

  - 2: Venus

  - 3: Moon

  - 4: Mars

  - 5: Jupiter

  - 6: Saturn

  - 7: Uranus

  - 8: Neptune

  - 9: Pluto

Z

- Center the display at the Zenith Point (straight up)

N

- Center the display above the North point on the horizon

E

- Center the display above the East point on the horizon

S

- Center the display above the South point on the horizon

W

- Center the display above the West point on the horizon

&Ctrl;T

- Toggle tracking mode

<

- Advance the simulation clock backwards by one time step

>

- Advance the simulation clock forwards by one time step

### Menu Shortcuts

&Ctrl;D

- Download extra data

&Ctrl;O

- Open a FITS image in the FITS Editor

&Ctrl;I

- Export sky image to a file

&Ctrl;L

- Run a &kstars; Observation Planner

&Ctrl;R

- Run a &kstars; &DBus; script

&Ctrl;P

- Print the current sky map

&Ctrl;Q

- Quit &kstars;

&Ctrl;E

- Sync the simulation clock with the current system time

&Ctrl;S

- Set the simulation clock to a specified Time and Date

&Ctrl;&Shift;F

- Toggle full-screen mode

&Ctrl;0

- Define equipment (telescope, eyepiece, lens and filter) characteristics for observation logs

&Ctrl;1

- Add a new observer item for your observation logs

Space

- Toggle between the Horizontal and Equatorial Coordinate Systems

F1

- Open the &kstars; Handbook

F5

- Switch sky chart view to the Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection.

F6

- Switch sky chart view to the azimuthal equidistant projection.

F7

- Switch sky chart view to the orthographic projection.

F8

- Switch sky chart view to the equirectangular projection.

F9

- Switch sky chart view to the stereographic projection.

F10

- Switch sky chart view to the gnomonic projection.

### Actions for the Selected Object

Each of the following keystrokes performs an action on the selected object. The selected object is the last object which was clicked on (identified in the status bar). Alternatively, if you hold down the &Shift; key, then the action is performed on the centered object instead.

C

- Center and Track on the selected object

D

- Open the Details window for the selected object

L

- Toggle a name label for the selected object

O

- Add the selected object to the observing list

P

- Open the selected object's popup menu

T

- Toggle a trail on the selected object (solar system bodies only)

### Tools Shortcuts

&Ctrl;F

- Open the Find Object window, for specifying a sky object on which to center

&Ctrl;M

- Open the Set Coordinates Manually tool, for specifying RA/Dec or Az/Alt coordinates on which to center

[

- Start an Angular Distance measurement at the current mouse cursor position. The angular distance between start and end points is displayed at the endpoint.

&Ctrl;G

- Open the Set Geographic Location window

&Ctrl;C

- Open the AstroCalculator

&Ctrl;A

- Open the Altitude vs. Time tool

&Ctrl;U

- Open the What's Up Tonight? tool

&Ctrl;W

- Open the What's Interesting tool

&Ctrl;B

- Open the Script Builder tool

&Ctrl;Y

- Open the Solar System Viewer

&Ctrl;J

- Open the Jupiter Moons tool

## Mouse Commands

Moving the mouse

- The sky coordinates (RA/Dec and Az/Alt) of the mouse cursor are updated in the status bar

"Hovering" the mouse

- A temporary name label is attached to the object nearest to the mouse cursor.

Left-clicking

- The object nearest the mouse click is identified in the status bar.

Double-clicking

- Center and track on the location or object nearest the mouse click. Double-clicking on an Info Box will shade it to show/hide extra information.

Right-clicking

- Open the popup menu for the location or object nearest the mouse cursor.

Scrolling the mouse wheel

- Zoom the display in or out. If you do not have a mouse wheel, you can hold the middle mouse button and drag vertically.

Click-and-dragging

- Dragging the sky map

- Pan the display, following the drag motion.

&Ctrl;+dragging the sky map

- Define a rectangle in the map. When the mouse button is released, the display is zoomed in to match the field-of-view to the bounds of the rectangle.

Dragging an Info Box

- The Info Box is repositioned in the map. Info Boxes will stick to window edges, so that they remain on the edge when the window is resized.